Raab served for seven years as chairwoman of the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission under Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani. In a 1997 profile,
The New York Times's David W. Dunlap said she had "developed some untraditional ideas about who belongs to the preservation community," adding that the changes – which could have been made "only by an outsider" – had greatly reduced the city's historic battling over preservation. She was head of the Landmarks Preservation Commission when it unanimously approved
Norman Foster's plans for
Hearst Tower in fall 2001. She also served on the Charter Revision Commission under Mayor
Michael Bloomberg. Previously, Raab worked for several years as a litigator at the law firms
Cravath, Swaine & Moore and
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. She was also special projects manager for the South Bronx Development Organization and director of public affairs for the
New York City Planning Commission. She is a member of
The Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of directors of The After School Corporation and on the Steering Committee of the
Association for a Better New York. Mayor Giuliani appointed her president of
Hunter College in 2001 amid controversy and accusations of intimidation of the board of trustees. The resistance to her appointment in the CUNY community stemmed from Raab's lack of doctoral degree (other than a Juris Doctor) and fundraising experience. The perceived "forcing through" of Raab prompted the
Village Voice to declare CUNY "a patronage mill." In 2010 Raab received an 8% pay raise, bringing her salary to $254,652. That same year CUNY approved substantial increases in tuition. After assuming the presidency in 2001, she led an effort to enlarge the Hunter College faculty and recruit distinguished professors and artists. Standards throughout the college were raised, and fiscal management modernized and strengthened. Entering SAT scores increased by 89 points in seven years and are now 137 points above the national average. Hunter has won new levels of government awards, private grants and philanthropic contributions and launched the first capital campaign in its history. Raab has been credited with transforming Hunter College from an open-admissions institution to a selective, highly ranked college with a highly diverse student population that comprises one of America's largest cohorts of immigrant and first-generation students, including the most selective Macaulay Honors program in the City University system. Since she assumed the presidency, Hunter has significantly increased its grants and awards, and modernized and strengthened its fiscal management. Raab was responsible for securing an unprecedented $531 million in private philanthropic support for the college, the most successful fundraising in Hunter history, including a record $25 million gift by Toby and
Leon G. Cooperman in 2013 and more recently a $52 million gift from Leonard Lauder. Other notable gifts during her tenure have been a $10 million from the Caravan Institute, the parent organization of Parliamo Italiano, to continue the legacy of the school, and $15 million from Klara and
Larry Silverstein, president and chief executive of
Silverstein Properties. The gift will fund the Klara and Larry Silverstein student success center on the seventh floor of Hunter's library and the renovation of the Hunter College Auditorium, which will serve as the
New York Philharmonic's temporary home for three years. Other major changes include the renovation and reopening of the historic Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt House, which is now the Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, and the construction of a $131 million home on Third Avenue and East 119 Street in
East Harlem for Hunter's renowned Silberman School of Social Work that also housed the new CUNY School of Public Health. Hunter College was also included in The Princeton Review's 2012 Best 376 Colleges. Hunter was ranked among The Princeton Review's Top 10 "Best Value" public colleges in the nation in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Hunter College was also ranked as #7 among Top Public Schools of North Regional Universities as well as #34 among Best Regional Universities in the North (public and private) in the U.S. News & World Report 2012 Best Colleges rankings, moving up 18 positions in four years. Under Raab's leadership as president, Hunter College's Roosevelt House underwent a $24.5 million renovation, completed in 2010, and which is now the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Roosevelt House, a landmarked double-townhouse on East 65th Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side, was the historic New York City home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. After Sara's death in 1942, President Roosevelt was pleased to sell the House to Hunter College for use as a student center. An integral part of the college since 1943, the house has undergone an extensive renovation and re-opened in spring 2010 as the home of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The transformation of Roosevelt House into a state-of-the-art facility for the college provides the first living memorial to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in New York City and an exciting opportunity to build on their far-reaching contributions to the nation and the world. The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is dedicated to innovative approaches to teaching, research, and public programming. Located in the heart of New York City, the institute provides a platform from which high quality scholarship effectively informs and influences public debate and public life. The building features two apartments, which Hunter offers to visiting scholars, as well as "great room" that can double as an auditorium. Raab was quoted as saying the renovation gave Hunter, a public university, "the kind of opportunity reserved for a private university." Raab presided over the 2011 completion of a $131 million eight-story facility in East Harlem, which is now home to Hunter's Silberman School of Social Work. The School of Social Work was originally housed on East 79th Street, but was moved uptown in order to match the college's vision for the 21st century.
The New York Times's Glenn Collins described the move as "a multiparty real estate deal of byzantine complexity." The Council On Education For Public Health (CEPH) voted to accredit the CUNY School of Public Health when it was a unit of Hunter College (but is a now a separate unit of CUNY). In January 2012, it was announced Hunter College's graduate art school program will be moving to 95,000 square feet at 205
Hudson Street. Raab was quoted as saying, "We will be able to create a 21st century art school." At a news conference on September 10, 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Hunter's new nursing, science, and health professions building to be built at 73rd Street and the East River in partnership with
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which is now under construction. Even with all Ms. Raab's successes, her management style was the subject of an article in
The New York Times. The piece commented on Raab's appearance and was partly based on anonymous quotes, a practice the
Times usually frowns upon. The piece and its timing were later regretted by the Times' Public Editor,
Margaret Sullivan, During the
worldwide COVID-19 pandemic teachers at the Hunter College Campus Schools voted 96% no confidence in Raab or the administration's reopening plan, after the teachers were told to return to the classroom. On December 5, 2022, Raab announced that she would be leaving her role as President of Hunter College at the end of June 2023. As of December 2022, Raab was the longest-serving President in the CUNY system. Raab has had several opinion pieces published in the New York Daily News including op-eds on the need for increasing diversity in donor cell sources, Frances Perkins, legal challenges facing people with disabilities, and the importance of summer schooling. In a December 2025 New York Daily News op-ed, Raab, as CEO of NYSCF, highlighted the importance of scientific research to the New York economy and urged Mayor-elect Mamdani to invest in the life science sector to support job growth and to compensate for the federal government's retreat from funding. Raab has also contributed pieces to The Tablet and CNN. == Awards==